We have recently, in the case of Insurance Company v. Norton (supra, p. 234), shown that forfeitures are not favored in the law; and that courts are always prompt to seize hold of any circumstances that indicate an election to waive a forfeiture, or an agreement to do so on which the party has relied and acted. Any agreement, declaration, or course of action, on the part of an insurance company, which leads a party insured honestly to believe that by conforming thereto a forfeiture of his policy will not be incurred, followed by due conformity on his part, will and ought to estop the company from insisting upon the forfeiture, though it might be claimed under the express letter of the contract. The company is thereby estopped from enforcing the forfeiture. The representations, declarations, or acts of an agent, contrary to the terms of the policy, of course will not be sufficient, unless sanctioned by the company itself. Insurance Company v. Mowry, supra, p. 544. But where the latter has, by its course of action, ratified such declarations, representations, or acts, the case is very different.
In the present case, it appeared that the company had discontinued its agency at the place of residence of the insured soon after the policy was issued; and had given him notice by mail, from time to time, as the premium instalments became due, where and to whom to pay them,-sometimes at Savannah, several hundred miles, and sometimes at Vicksburg, a hundred and fifty miles, from his residence. Such notice, it would seem, had never been omitted prior to the maturity of the last instalment. The effect of the judge's charge was, that if this was the fact, and if no such notice had been given on that occasion, and the failure to pay the premium was solely due to the want of such notice, it being ready, and being tendered as soon as notice was given, no forfeiture was incurred. We think the charge was correct, under the circumstances of this case. The insured had good reason to expect and to rely on receiving notice to whom and where he should pay that instalment. It had always been given before; the office of the company was a thousand miles away; and they had always directed him to pay to an agent, but to different agents at different times.
Although, as we held in he case of Insurance Company v. Davis (95 U.S. 425), the legal effect of a policy, when nothing appears to the contrary, may be that the premium is payable at the domicile of the company; yet it cannot be expected or understood by the parties that the policy is, in ordinary circumstances, to be forfeited for a failure to tender the premium at such domicile, when the insured resides in a distant State, and has been in the habit, under the company's own direction, to pay to an agent there, and has received no notice that the contrary will be required of him. He would have a just right to say that he had been misled.